What does it take to rate a 7+?

[Etherion]

Hi Daft.

I rated them a few days ago, I just went over to see what I gave them, since I did lots of voting and dont remember. But I did remember seeing them, they left a good impression.
Even tough the pic is pretty bad I gave them an 8. The color composition is just too cool. Never seen Necrons like that and thus you got an \"originality\" bonus.
On the other Hand your Sorsha got a 5 from me when scrolling through all them pics. You really hurt my eyes with that color combo.
What can I say, there\'s as many likes and dislikes as there\'s people on CMON. Just keep on painting and not for the score but for your love of painting. Cheers

 

[vincegamer]

Originally posted by airhead
A few hints on you minis:

Squads do not score as well as individual minis - IMHO it has to do with the amount of detail that we can see.

From my experience I completely disagree with this. I have 2 entries here where I did one of squad and one of the individual, and in each case the squad is rated around 1.5 better than the individual. It is more impressive to see a squad if they have a good, creative theme.

 

[airhead]

Thought about that a while Vince.

a group of 5-6 individuals might score better as a group if the group is coherent in color schemes (not even necessarily identical). I don\'t think a crew of 9+\'s individually would score a 9 as we could not see the detail. Unless the photo was not a \'group shot\' thing.

The photowork would make a considerable difference too. A pic of the squad 2 wide with multiple shots would be better than a single pic of the squad spread out over the table.

Just my thoughts and observations.

 

[tzor]

If I had to put a word to it, and I am certanly neither a good painter nor judge, I would say for me, blending is one way to get a 7. That is you have on the mini a variety of shades of colors that give the mini depth and character. NMM is one way of blending shades, but not the only way. You can also blend with metals as well.

But when metals have a smooth texture, when silk looks as smooth as silk, when skin has various levels of shade and tan, and everything comes together, one has a 7 or even more.

 

[shinjikun1]

I think anouther point might be to appeal to your audiance. Votes many times come from the simple fact of weather someone likes the model or not. Being creative and original gets high scores too. example, Frodo wearing the One Ring.

 

[EricJ]

I actually think posting 7+ minis is a serious turning point. I think the top of the cmon bell curve is about 6.5ish, so once you\'re passing 7 you\'re in the upper half of painters out there. To me this means a few things.

First your technique and brush control are above average. This means you never go outside the lines even on fine details, and you do not rely on drybrushing anymore. You\'ve started developing blending and have a sense of highlights and shadow.

Second, you\'ve developed a style and sense of color. This means you know what colors work together in a way that\'s pleasing to the eye, and you know where accents should fall to catch someones attention.

Third, your photography is up to the task. I could set my Dragyri on a table, step back 3 feet in poor lighting and make it look like tabletop quality. To me if you take a photo of a table top with a mini on it that I can\'t see well, it\'s table top quality, max is a 5.

Forth, is completeness. At this point you should be proud of the work you\'re producing, and that should show by completing it 100%. No excuses for unfinished bases or for skipping over details.

that\'s my thoughts on it right now, it know it\'s rather vague, but so is this whole rating concept, and it\'s really more mass-psychology than rocket science. The bottom line is the way to get a 7+ mini is to push yourself to improve your painting, and the scores will follow.

-Eric

PS, I don\'t think squads score less, other than the fact they can be harder to photograph. I thought for a long time they scored better as my top 2 submissions for a long time were of squads, and I think my first two 9+\'s were as well.

 

[Wren]

Originally posted by EricJ
PS, I don\'t think squads score less, other than the fact they can be harder to photograph. I thought for a long time they scored better as my top 2 submissions for a long time were of squads, and I think my first two 9+\'s were as well.

I will often score a well-done squad that is clearly photographed a point higher than I would a single mini from that squad, as it is a painting accomplishment in my eyes to get a visually cohesive unit painted up nicely.

 

[Naukhel]

This sort of thread comes up often, and I, as usual, have pretty much the same thing to say....

If people give a lower rating to a mini, it would be very nice to explain \'why\', so that the person posting their work can know what they need to improve upon.

The \'discuss submissions\' group usually gets more comments than the pics themselves, especially if a link to the pic is included, but even still, not always as many as might be wanted.

If and/or when I give a higher score to a mini I vote on, I usually have less to say about it, critique-wise, because my own level of skill isn\'t up there to give any really useful comment to the mini in question, most of the time.

However, I\'m a fairly steady 5-6 painter (though I believe I\'m improving), and trying to get better, and frankly, I want people to \'rip my work apart\' with comments.

NSA\'s sig really says it best, I think. And I do have the pre-requisite \'thick skin\' to take harsher comments about my work. I want to get better, and there\'s a lot of people here that know far more than myself that I would be delighted to learn from.

 

[tidoco2222]

Originally posted by Daft
Aaaaah!! That feels better. Submit to the addiction. Resistence is futile. I shall try painting in the lotus position for a while. That should make everything happier.

The frustrating thing is that I don\'t paint to get a better score. Rather I post to get feedback to improve my painting.

However, I\'ll bring this to a point where it can remain in this section of the forum.


Now these are currently rating about a 5.9, which is about what I expect. Yet one of the comments is \"If that is NMM these are very underrated.\" Now I scream. WHY?? Rate them for their appearance, not the technique used to gain that appearance.

I thimk that these are easy 7 plus minis mainly because I know how difficult it can be to get good interesting Necrons. I think the colour choices are good and contrast well making the minis stand out from the bases. I think the center one could do with repositioning and also the gold could do with a highlight of gold plus a very small amount of silver in just to tarnish them up a bit, they are supposed to be ancient after all.
Maybe a wash of Dark Flesh here and there for rust on the silver and a bit of vert de gris on parts of the gold too and you may even be getting up towards an eight on these for me.
Oh yes and a belated welcome to the forums also.